Sunday
Jan032010
Scorpions Sunday!
Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 12:01AM
The first Sunday of 2010 is a great time to review some of my fave Scorpions tunes. I'm dreading the long drive home from Memphis so I'll be cranking some Scorps on my car CD player.
"Wind of Change"
"Believe in Love"
"Rhythm of Love"
Reader Comments (13)
Anywho, they really started to cheeze out and party out with the 'Lovedrive' album (my least favorite xcept for the track "Another Piece of Meat") in '79.
But there must be a reason I've got them consistently positioned at the top of everyone of my Hair/Glam/AOR playlists, usually within the first 5 songs and in the case of two, the mixes kick off with a track by them.
I suppose it's no coincidence they are at the top of my Heavy Metal heap since I like my Metal cheezy and I like my parties with a Party Metal soundtrack. In fact, some of these playlists clock in at nearly 24 hours and contain 320+ songs without a repeat of a band (or if a new singer comes in, they get another up at bat or if the original singer forms a new band, he gets another up at bat, or if the guitarist forms a new band with a different singer, he gets another up at bat and if any band member does a solo album, he gets another up at bat. Makes sense right, hahaha!!!).
And who's at the top of those lists? Yep. Scorps. (BTW, these 24 hour soundtracks come in handy the way Metalboy! has been known to party in NYC in South Beach these days. I just wanna get on a roll to really crank 'em up in one of those mega-whale suites at the Four Seasons inside the Bellagio in Vegas or even better, cantilevered over the Hollywood Hills out by the pool of a Robert Lautner designed 70's glassed off job {Fast forward to see Jeff Bridges getting his undue comeuppance via Ben Gazzara's fist in 'The Big Lebowski' to see Lautner's L.A. masterpiece}, while being overserved Martinis [Belvedere, in and out, shaken, not stirred] by topless hostesses and getting pitched movie treatments all day long).
Bottom line, whether you like your Metal Cheezy or Legit, there's no denying, The Scorps kick more a*s than just about anybody out there. Of course, I'm killin' myself I didn't see 'em when I had the chance (which was more than once), though I did pick up 'Lovedrive' in '79 in Vero Beach, Florida on 8-track the day it came out to load into the 8-track system of a yellow '79 Formula Firebird (with T-top!) my buddy had rented when we stayed down there for a month while I helped open the local Publix (slave labor), learned the proper way to bag groceries, and he went to FlightSafety to learn to be a pilot (the real reason). The main reason for me going down there was the fact that it was warm (February in Maryland can be downright arctic!).
This is also when he got one of the first Walkmans in the country and lent it to me to listen to while I was getting a tan on the beach (talk about a chick magnet -- the Walkman, not me -- this worked better than a white lab, lemme tell ya!).
But I digress. This is about Scorpions! These guys are one of the original Glam Metal bands and one of the greatest in Metal history, bar none, influencing damn near every Glam/Hair/AOR act to follow in their footsteps (no wonder Rudolf is smiling all the time in those classic vids and live, more on this later).
Here's what I've got by Scorpions on my iTunes:
1) "Falling In Love" from Animal Magnetism (Gee, I wonder where Warrant copped the opening and outro of their hit, 'Down Boys'? Why the opening and outro of this track, that's where!)
2) "No One Like You" from 'Blackout'
3) "Can't Live Without You" from 'Blackout'
4) "You Give Me All I Need" from 'Blackout'
5) "Blackout" from 'Blackout'
6) "Tease Me, Please Me" from 'Crazy World'
7) "Wind of Change" from 'Crazy World' (Sorry, folks, I know this is supposed to be the most heartfelt tear jerker about freedom and all but for me, this is their absolute cheeziest moment and not in a good way for me. My least fave cut and their biggest Spinal Tap moment -- minus Tap's humor, obviously. But I have it on like me 5th Powerballad/Love Song playlist anyway since I'm an obsessive compulsive (hahaha!!! Can't you tell?) completist and besides, chix are suckerz for it everytime, even if they are too young to know who the h*ll it is or have never even heard the track before, hahaha!!!).
8) "Still Loving You" from 'Love at First Sting'. For my money, this is Mathias Jabs' finest moment (IMHO). His leads on this cut are searing, screaming and crying. He just goes so wild and fast toward the end you almost feel like he's losing track of where he is on the frets. It sounds so spontaneous like he layed this down in the studio as a total improv. Killer beyond killer! And it reached #64 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart! And this kicks off my playlist, 'Hard Luv'.
9) "Bad Boys Running Wild" from 'Love at First Sting'
10)"Rock You Like A Hurricane" from 'Love at First Sting'. Doesn't get any bigger than this folks! This song reached #25 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart! I can remember hearing it all the time on AM radio in the car when it was playing every hour on the hour! Thoze were the daze, kidz... When Metal Ruled! And ruled the radio!
11) "Big City Nights" from 'Love at First Sting'. My fave cut by them and my anthem for when I lived in NYC for 13 years!
12) "Loving You Sunday Morning" from 'Lovedrive'. This is on a playlist I call 'Morning Metal', hahaha!!! Not really my cup of tea (no pun intended) but the chix dig it the morning after, if they qualify as real rockerz and possible "keeperz". It's actually a good test to see if they are.
13) "Another Piece of Meat" from 'Lovedrive'. Speaking of the morning after, I could alwayz opt for playing this in the a.m. after a one night stand -- just kidding! This is killer on the title alone. Simultaneously unintentionally hilarious (or is it intentional?) and totally killer at the same time! I've got this on a playlist titled, 'XXX Metal'.
14) "Holiday". Absolutely can't stand this song but have this on my iTunes to try and figure out why, which I've been trying to do since '79 when I bought the 8-track. Chix dig it, though, which may be another reason why I still have it around, hahaha!!! I know, I'm a total male chauvinist pig, but a chivalrous one, hahaha!!!
15) "Rhythm Of Love" from 'Savage Amusement'. Now we're talkin'! My second fave song by them. Check out Rudy's grin on this one. Musta been when he stopped being able to count the royalty checks. And it's excellent, to boot!
16) "Passion Rules The Game" from 'Savage Amusement'.
17) "Believe in Love" from 'Savage Amusement'. I've got this as track three after "Never Change Heart" by Great White and "In My Dreams" by Dokken on a playlist called, 'Heavy Luv', followed by "Hysteria" by Def Lep, etc...
The album 'Love at First Sting' is also notable as one of the best album covers of all time as it was shot by Helmut Newton, one of the greatest fashion photographers of all time (check out this guys coffee table books!)
There is also a killer Scorpions movie, "World Wide Live" from their height in 1985 on DVD, which is a must see if you like 'em or not.
If you like Scorpions, check out 220 Volt, "Eye To Eye" from 1988. The album is superb and they are the closest thing to a complete clone of the Scorpions, though they pale by comparison, but are still great, nevertheless (and couldn't have done it without the Scorps, as you will hear for yourself, if you choose to pick it up).
p.s. My ex-lead guitarist and I in our "Beavis & Butthead" phase (like we aren't permanently in that phase still to this day), used to slow motion forward and frame grab Rudolf's faces and grins on the videos Allyson has featured above, over and over again watching "Headbanger's Ball" on MTV, after a night of being "overserved" in the downtown bars of our hometown and we would just roll around on the floor dying of laughter as he really is quite a character (and the Scorps chief songwriter). After all, he is the chief architect of the whole Scorpions behemoth and it takes on special significance when watching his stagecraft. It's his baby, and he is proud of it, concentrating on his stage moves and letting Mathias take care of all the heavy lifting, lead-wise, though we've been known to freeze-frame Mathias' faces to great effect on occasion, as well). To the Scorps! May they "Rock Us Like A Hurricane" from here to Metal Eternity! Maybe I'll get to see 'em, albeit, regrettably, not in their classic line-up, most likely, since they can't seem to resolve their differences with bassist Francis Bucholz and drummer Herman Rarebell (who composed such Scorpions classics as "Another Piece Of Meat", "Falling In Love", "Passion Rules The Game" and is the lyricist of "Rock You Like A Hurricane", "Blackout", "Bad Boys Running Wild", and "Tease Me, Please Me", among others). I wish Rudy would throw money at the problem and get these guys back. Can you imagine?!
Disclaimer: Not responsible (or responsible, but don't give a damn) for typos, dangling participles, run-ons, unnecesary overuse of quotation marks, brackets, commas, dashes, exclamation points, question marks, onerous capitalization and parenthesis AND the expression of annoying opinions that may inadvertantly or purposely be designed to p*ss people off, etc.!
http://www.bringbackglam.com/journal/2009/12/29/avenged-sevenfold-drummer-found-dead.html
And you are right, Looksthatkill, they are GODZ! I just happen to think they are gaudy GAWDZ!
Needless to say, I wound up listening to 'em in the car all afternoon when I was spinning around town. Killer Killerz! But it's Pop, son, gotta say. How the h*ll else would it wind up in the Top 40!
Thought of somethin' else, too, since I didn't realize drummer Rarebell had either composed both the music and lyrics to some of their best known classics and/or wrote the lyrics to many of the hits, as well...
If you'll noticed from the moment he split for the final time in '95, there was a relatively rapid decline in the quality of the material. Yeah, you can blame Grunge, etc., but I'm talkin' 'bout quality of the material regardless of the unified revolt against Cheeze Metal (realize, I am using the term affectionately, LTK -- you want Legit Metal go to the first six recordz before they popped out into their Cheeze/Glam/Hair Metal style, which I of course, prefer, but I ain't gonna pretend this is not so totally Pop, dude!) by the record companies, radio and MTV.
So, anyway, I say Bring Back Glam, Rudy! -- Get me Rarebell and get him to start writing some new material. It's time to start Rockin' Us Like A Hurricane once more!
What better way to Bring Back Glam!
But for me, "Still Loving You" is 10x better, and deserved to be the Top 10 smash that "Wind of Change" (sadly) was...
Also good to hear that someone else actually likes "Passion Rules the Game". I can't honestly say why I like that song, but it has always been one of my favorites from the Scorps, along with "Blackout" and "The Zoo".
Perspective is I'm listening to Accept "Balls To The Wall" right now. Now that's my idea of a love song! Just strap me into a triple black '89 'Vette and crank "Blackout" to the max while standing up through the T-top like Jaws drivin' that Mark IV or whatever the h*ll it is with his head stickin' out of the sunroof in "The Spy Who Loved Me"!
Frickin' "Winds Of Change", "Every Rose Has It's Thorn", even "The Ballad Of Jayne" are all such borefests but the latter two almost sound legit by comparison to WOC, argh, what schmaltz!
I'm gonna pull down "The Zoo" and jam on it rite now. Thanx for flaggin' it for me, mon! When it comes to our Glam and Hair Metal, dude, you are alwayz rite on it, bro! Glad your with me on WOC.
The master tapes of that little dittie need to be put in a Time Capsule marked "Biggest Metal Blunder, 1990", buried and then we need to have the map for where to find it burned!
Happy New Metal Year!
p.s. Accept is about to come out with a new album with the dude from T.T. Quick as the new singer (check T.T. doin' a Metal cover of "Glad All Over" by the Dave Clark Five to get a dose of this guy'z chops -- He's a total killer!). No wonder they picked him, crimee!
25.000 fans packed the tent known in those days as the green stage and it's up there on my top ten list of greatest gigs ever. Come to think of it, the first album I ever got was "Balls to the Wall" (Xmas ´83).
Never seen Scorpions but the World Wide Live double album spins on my turntable from time to time.
Now as for Scorpions, Snoot, have you seen "World Wide Live" on DVD? You'll trip on it, for sure. Lots of terrific behind the scenes stuff besides the killer concert footage. Also, it is so cool you spin the LP on your TURNTABLE. The fact that you even have a turntable rocks beyond compare!
I've got a Technics DJ pro grade job from back in the day but, alas, it's in storage on the tip of Long Island almost 2000 miles away from where I live now in sunny Florida (don't get jealous right now -- cripes, it was 37 degrees last night!).
But I do know a lot of Rocker Kidz (I'm talkin' in their teens and in their 20's, as well as "older" kidz that still have 'em in service as well, hahaha!!!), who listen to stuff on their turntable.
Believe me, it sounds different, and in some cases better! I mean, look, get the same feeling kidz of the Sunset Strip got back in the day, when they used to crank up "Too Fast For Love" on their record playerz like Snoot, here, kidz!
There's just something about the experience that sounds tangibly better in most cases. I'm sure some of the technical engineerz out there can explain it. Also, apparently combined with a tube amp (don't laugh, they start at like a thouw!) and a serious set of Martin-Logan sound imaging speakers, for example, you can actually visualize how they miked the studio or the stage if it's live (as in 'World Wide Live', kidz!). The whole thing is very often described as a warmer experience with LP's as opposed to CD's or worse (hate to break it to ya, kidz), MP3 files, which apparently have the mid-range virtually crushed out of the recording as it was originally intended to be heard leaving you with a listening experience that has been universally characterized by most audiophiles as "warmer".
So, unless you like your Metal served cold, which is the way I've been consuming it for years, it's time to go for Snoot's option, which I'm sure is much more pleasurable, as I recall, before I got remade into Metalboy!
Also, I forgot to mention SCORPIONS have one of THE coolest logos in Rock'n'Roll history and prove it everytime I wear one of the actual authentic vintage Scorpions Tour T-shirts from '85, I bought in New York in '98 -- cheated and payed 25 bux for it at "What Goes Around Comes Around" and did the same for nearly every Hair Metal act from back in the day -- I know, I'm a poseur!
And Accept (another killer logo!)? Dude, that's so wild how you saw 'em in '94! I saw 'em in '93 off the "Objection Overruled" album at Hammerjack's (perhaps the greatest Rock'n'Roll club on the east coast during the Heyday of Hair Metal) in Baltimore, Maryland. Me and the boyz were all blown away, needless to say, but we left the babes at home, which is pretty funny, since their lyrics are all written by Wolf Hoffman's wife, hahaha!!!
And of course, there were lots of Metal Mama's in the audience, to boot! And, in the case of Accept, boots are what they were wearin' -- all of 'em were wearin' German Army boots and all were in black head to toe w/ black guitars to boot, xcept UDO, who was getting sartorially adventurous donning camouflaged army fatigue trowsers.
But he wore a black T-shirt, I mean, let's not get too crazy (costume-wise, in any case). Another cool detail, which you may have also experienced, Snoot, is the fact that when we saw 'em, Hoffman was handling all the guitars, forgoing their customary trademark dual lead guitar attack and going it alone like the true guitar god he is.
I also remember beyond being cleanly and precisely shredded to death by this guy, that he played an entire piece by Beethoven (he was classically trained in music school, btw)!
Alas, they didn't play "Midnite Mover", my absolute fave Metal song of all time (how's that for a claim, boyz!).
But I also remember UDO screamin' his little frickin' a*s off! What a killer! And Hoffman and company, too!
I'll definitely catch 'em with that T.T. Quick dude singin' on this go 'round! He's another total killer (told ya, check out T.T. doin' a slightly different take (hahaha!!!) of the Dave Clark Five's "Glad All Over", to check out this dudes vocal chops). He, like I said, is a total killer!
And so are you, Snoot! Thanx for all the tips and wisdom. Have a Happy Metal Year, son (and High Decibel Decade, too!)!
A few comments about some of the things mentioned above.
Rudy was very reluctant about the whistling as well for "Wind of Change".
Rudy actually plays most of the solos on "Still Loving You".
Good to know that's actually most likely Rudy on the majority of the solos for "Still Loving You"! I wonder if it's Rudy cranking off that killer solo toward the end where it sounds like the guitarist just runs down the frets right past himself. Such a killer lead and one of my faves of all time and I mean of anybody, not just the Scorps.
And you know what?, listening to "Winds Of Change", I'm realizing I'm a total bafoon for being so hypercritical. Look, for me it's Cheeze but you know, I can hear in the song, that they are being genuinely heartfelt about the song's message.
It comes through in not only the lyrics, but the passion with which Klaus sings 'em and not just in the arrangement and composition of the music of the song, but also in the way Rudy and Mathias and all involved, play on it, as well.
I mean, WTF, I don't know sh*t about music and nothing could be more glaringly obvious than just that, especially when you consider what I've done in music as compared to Scorpions' achievements.
So, I may have written a couple of originals and sang in a Metal cover band, BWTH (abbreviation for But What The H*ll), I don't know squat when it comes to identifying what is legit music and what isn't.
Whether WOC is Cheeze or not, anything I've ever done in music is no contender for this song's monumental stature in the pantheon of Hair Metal.
It gets back to that whole thing I've touched on here on Bring Back Glam before...
And that is...
I don't have to personally like something to know if it's good or not.
Scorpions rule the Metal world!